


The Prisoner

by TonalModulator



Series: Azura's Reluctant Pawn [1]
Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind
Genre: Gen, Ildari's backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-01
Updated: 2019-12-01
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:33:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21629185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TonalModulator/pseuds/TonalModulator
Summary: When a Blades agent is killed, a young mage at the Arcane University comes under suspicion and ends up in the Imperial City's prison.
Series: Azura's Reluctant Pawn [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1517603
Kudos: 8
Collections: Holiday TES Fanfic Fest!





	The Prisoner

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [regretfulghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/regretfulghost/pseuds/regretfulghost) in the [Holiday_TES_Fanfic_Fest](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Holiday_TES_Fanfic_Fest) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> How did your Nerevarine/Hero of Kvatch/Last Dragonborn end up on a ship to Morrowind/in the Imperial Prisons/caught crossing the boarder into Skyrim? Write one, two, or all three of the scenarios, it's up to the writer.

It was quiet when Ildari arrived at her workshop in the Arcane University. That was unusual. She was stationed next to a destruction mage to one side and an alchemist to the other, and so there were always explosions and screams coming from somewhere. But not today. Everyone was quiet.

That was how she noticed the guards walking around. It didn’t look like a regular patrol; they were investigating something. She subtly cast a spell to enhance her hearing—if they had wanted to keep it private, they would have set up a ward, after all. From what she could pick up, it sounded like there had been a murder. Corius Verto. She recognized the name. He worked just down the hall. Restoration mage, maybe? Or was it alteration? She wasn’t sure.

He was a friendly sort, almost too friendly. He was always talking to everyone, learning their business. Ildari had always kept her distance. She preferred to keep to her studies, and engaging a man like Corius was a sure way to get dragged into whatever drama was occupying the university that week.

She almost wasn’t surprised to hear he’d been killed. If this were Morrowind, from what she understood of her people’s homeland, he never would have made it this long. He would have annoyed the wrong person with his pestering or his gossip, and wound up on the wrong end of a Morag Tong writ by the end of the week.

But this was not her homeland. Sure, she was born in the Imperial City, but she was not one of them. She was reminded of that with every suspicious glare from her Imperial colleagues, and every whispered comment when they thought she couldn’t hear.

* * *

“Did you hear about the murder?” Ildari asked her mother at dinner that evening.

Talyn Melas had always acted as a mother to Ildari, as Ildari’s birth parents disappeared when she was a baby, shortly after they arrived in Cyrodiil. Talyn was a Telvanni master, and a friend and former mentor to Ildari’s parents. She had come to the Imperial City a few years before they did in an attempt to broaden her horizons, and ended up extending her few-year visit indefinitely. When her former students expressed interest in starting a family, but said they were worried about trying to raise children in the face of the growing Blight, she suggested that they follow her to Cyrodiil.

They disappeared in 3E401, less than a year after Ildari was born. Talyn had submitted inquiry after inquiry, but all they would reveal was that the couple were arrested under suspicion of anti-Imperial activity. Talyn knew they had no great love for the Empire—and neither did she, for that matter—but conspiracy? That seemed entirely uncharacteristic of them. She was convinced that there was something else going on, but there was no way she could go up against the Empire to find out. Especially not when their baby was now under her protection.

“I think the whole city has heard about it,” Talyn replied. “Even outside the University, the guards are scouring the city, looking for clues.”

“Murders like this are pretty rare, aren’t they?”

“Almost unsettlingly rare, compared to what I was used to back in Morrowind. It took me a good decade to relax my defenses and stop looking over my shoulder every five minutes,” she said. “Still, it’s even rarer for it to stir up this kind of fuss.”

“I wonder what’s so special about this one,” Ildari said.

Talyn lowered her voice. “Well, you didn’t hear this from me, but word is he was a Blade.”

Ildari’s eyes widened. “A Blade? Aren’t they the Emperor’s spies?”

Her mother nodded.

“What was he doing in the Arcane University?”

“Spying, I should think.”

“I guess I could have figured that much out,” Ildari laughed. “What do you think happened, then? Do you think he turned up something that someone didn’t want the Emperor to find out?”

Talyn shrugged. “I’ve no idea. But I do know I’ll be staying out of the investigation as much as possible, and I advise you to do the same. I know it goes without saying, but they’re always watching us. We may well have been the reason he was stationed there in the first place.”

Ildari nodded solemnly. “Do you think they suspect we had something to do with it?”

“It’s hard to say,” her mother said, but her face indicated more concern than her words did. “Just stay careful.”

* * *

Over the next few days, the furtive glances and whispers grew more and more common.

“Her kind hates the Empire.”

“Didn’t you hear about her parents? I wouldn’t be surprised if she takes after them.”

“Why does she keep to herself so much?”

“She probably thinks she’s better than us.”

“She’s always been uncannily persuasive—she probably convinced him to drink poison.”

“She’s a heretic, too. Her people’s Tribunal are probably using her to take over the Empire.”

There was a knock on the door to her workshop. “Miss Ildari?” a guard said. “We’d like you to come with us.”

A wave of cold washed over her. “May I ask why?”

“We’re placing you under arrest on suspicion of the murder of Corius Verto.”

Her legs felt like lead, but she forced herself to move and go with them. Surely if she cooperated, she would be more likely to get a fair trial, right?

* * *

She gave up asking about her trial after a few days in the Imperial City Prison, and instead accepted that she would likely share the same fate as her birth parents: to either rot in a cell or be executed. Either way, she knew she would never see the light of day again, at least not as a free mer. After several weeks, they finally dragged her out, still in cuffs.

 _Execution it is, then,_ she thought. She tried to conjure up the Dunmeri Death Rites from memory to recite them as she walked, but her Dunmeris was too rusty to be able to remember the words without a prayer book in front of her. She thought about asking if they had one—they’re supposed to give condemned prisoners a chance to pray, right?—but she ultimately decided against it. She had rarely ever prayed to the Tribunal in her lifetime, so why would they listen to her in death?

To her surprise, she was loaded onto a carriage, and then unloaded at a dock and led onto a ship. Why did they need to leave the Imperial City just to kill her? Something strange was going on, but no one seemed to want to tell her what it was.

On the boat, she had a dream. A god-like voice spoke to her.

“ _They have taken you from the Imperial City’s prison, first by carriage, and now by boat, to the east, to Morrowind. Fear not, for I am watchful. You have been chosen._ ”


End file.
